Striving

The potatoes are boiling, so I have some time here. Hopefully what I'm about to write will make sense, but, I just broke a fluorescent light bulb so perhaps I am suffering from mercury inhalation. Anyway...

I have a friend from graduate school who is one of the most cheerful people I know. Oh, sure, he's haunted by demons like the rest of us, but he's exceedingly cheerful about it. When we were students, I'd have him and other friends over for dinner and we'd sit up late into the night talking about stuff like our crazy professors, whether reality can be directly discerned, whether we were ever going to find jobs, and Buddhism.

My friend is the most enthusiastic Buddhist I know. He comes from a country in which most of the people practice Buddhism, and he is pretty serious about it to the point of trying really, really, really hard to adhere to certain dietary restrictions despite his incredible love of chicken. My cheerful friend attributes his cheerfulness to his ability to give up desire and live in the moment. He believes that attachment causes suffering and so he is not attached to any one person, thing, way of life, or...anything really. Because of this lack of attachment he loves all people, instead of just loving some people. His day-to-day journey is focused on leading a desire-free life, which enables him to accept what comes and take joy in every moment. He is a delightful person to be around, and he is incredibly generous in spirit and in action.

I would make a terrible Buddhist.

Many parts make a lot of sense to me, particularly the stuff about compassion, and about living in the moment, but I cannot wrap my head around the desire-less part of the whole thing. Part of what makes life so beautiful to me is the presence of desire, regardless of whether it is fulfilled. To me, desire is closely wrapped up in ambition, and in a sense of striving, trying, pushing, struggling to achieve something special. Desire is also about a sense of yearning, and I find that yearning to be poignant and meaningful. Life is exciting in part due to desire and the struggle to achieve -- at least for me. Even with something as commonplace as love, I've always embraced the struggle inherent in loving from afar, loving in a manner that could ultimately be unrequited, which is okay from my point of view, because the very act of loving, regardless of its consequences, is joyous. The painful parts of these experiences heightens the joyful parts for me.

One of my mentors refers to the type of struggle people engage in when becoming profoundly stuck in a problem as "intellectual agony", which he later re-termed "joyful agony." He wanted to capture how worth it he finds the agony that we experience when we, for instance, spend a week trying and failing to create a proof. I know exactly what he means, which is probably why I majored in math. That agony is terrible but the occasional epiphany that follows it is so sublime. It makes everything else worth it. And even without the epiphany, the agony itself is so deeply gut-wrenching that it reminds you that you're alive, that the very struggle itself is meaningful. I have many memories of maddening frustration as I worked and worked to try to understand something just beyond my grasp. It could be infuriating, but I also remember how alive I felt during those times. And how beautiful the crisp fall day would appear to me when I emerged from the bowels of some dusty building on the quad, how everything about the world struck me as almost painfully perfect, down to the very breeze hitting my face. All of these feelings are intimately related to desire to understand, to achieve, and the keen, joyful ache that such a desire evokes.

I'm not the kind of person who does well with setting modest expectations. The downside to this is that the disappointment that comes when I don't achieve what I set out to do is sharp and painful, and sometimes embarrassing. If I don't expect too much, then I can be pleasantly surprised if things go well and avoid harsh disappointment when they don't. This might lead to a more even-keeled, calm demeanor.

On the other hand, I think that at times my ability to whole-heartedly embrace my desire serves to push me a little bit more. It makes me try a little harder, work a little more, and it might make it a little more possible for me to achieve the things I go after. So, it's risky. I feel like I am wearing my heart on my sleeve in kind of a pathetic way. My cards are on the table. I want to do a good job as a mom and a wife, I want to do right by my family. But the scarier stuff is that I want to be able to have a family and simultaneously get tenure at my R1 university. I want to get the fancy high-stakes grant (oh, how I want this grant). I want to get my signature piece published in my field's top journal. I want to do work that really matters. That changes how people think. That changes how we teach. The kinds of things I want are likely to make me fall flat on my face, so it's kind of hard, and a little embarrassing, to put it out there like that. But I want these things.

I want to struggle. I want to work at things, to try to do something hard that I don't know if I can achieve or not. The uncertainty is scary (can I do it?), but the struggle makes me feel like my life is worth something.

I want, I want, I want.